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January 17, 2017

In my previous posts I have covered all the new players on this year's ballot with a link to the Red Sox as well as those of interest to my Canadian readers. (And provided links to previous year's write-ups for returning candidates).See links below for those articles:Red Sox playersCanadian / Expos / Blue Jays

To summarize, I would vote for the following Red Sox players:

Jeff Bagwell

Roger Clemens

Curt Schilling

Lee Smith

Billy Wagner

Manny Ramirez

And the following Canadians/Blue Jays/Expos:

Vladimir Guerrero

Tim Raines

Edgar Martinez

Fred McGriff

Larry Walker

Additionally, the following candidates would get a check mark from me:

Barry Bonds

Trevor Hoffman

Mike Mussina

Ivan Rodriguez

That’s a total of 15. I need to remove 5. Lee Smith (regrettably in his last year), Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner are easy choices. As in previous years, I’ll need to erase the checkmark next to Fred McGriff’s name. My last cut is Mike Mussina. He deserves it, but will need to wait for a future year. My final ballot:

There are only two new players of interest to Canadians
in this year’s Hall of Fame ballot. Matt
Stairs (from New Brunswick) and Vlad Guerrero (long time Expos player).

The returning candidates are:

Tim Raines (10th year, 70% last year)

Roger Clemens (5, 45%)

Edgar Martinez (8, 43%)

Fred McGriff (8, 21%)

Jeff Kent (4, 21%)

Larry Walker (7, 16%)

I’ve previously made cases for all these guys (and explained why they should be on the list of players of interest to Canadians) except Jeff
Kent. And I think every year I end up
with no room for McGriff and he gets dropped off my ballot. But Raines, Clemens, Edgar and Walker are no brainers.

Vladimir Guerrero – The raw back of baseball card numbers: .318 batting average, 449 home runs, 181 steals. We've evolved to where we determine the worthiness of a player on more than just these numbers, but it is worth mentioning that NOBODY in the history of baseball has him beat on all three. Quick: What do no doubt Hall of Famers, Reggie Jackson, Yaz, George Brett, and Ken Griffey have in common? They all have a career OPS (and OPS+ adjusted for the eras they played in) lower than Guerrero's. He had a stretch of 10 years where he AVERAGED an OPS+ of 151. There were three guys who bested that in the NL last year. It's not a question of whether he should get in or not. It's a question of whether or not it will be an insult to not have him in as a first ballot Hall of Famer!